Dank cellars and the best dressed vendor in the city

Published on Saturday 22 September 2007 12:29

IT was 1940 and the dank cellars lining Castlehill on the approaches to Edinburgh Castle were bustling with activity. Vendors advertised their wares with loud yells, as children ducked in and out of the busy stalls.

Agnes and Frank Nolan sold newspapers and flowers from a cellar on Castlehill and their son Tom Nolan, now 67, remembers helping his mother out when his father had been "on the hard stuff".

"The stall was in a dank, dark cellar," he says. "And if my mum needed more supplies she would send me down into the basement to get them.

"It had a big thick wooden door with iron rivets which I opened with an old-fashioned iron key. The door would groan and creak and the only light was from a single light bulb in a corner of the room. I would grab what I needed and run as fast as I could."

Once a week Tom would also help his father. "We'd go down to the flower sellers on Market Street together to buy what we needed for our stall. We used to haggle so that we could get the best price. I used to love going there." he says.

"There were so many plants to choose from but my favourite was called catkin. When we got back from the market we would soften different coloured glitter wax on the fire and paint the silvery buds. I thought they were beautiful."

The cellar where Tom's parents had their stall has since been transformed into one of the most exclusive restaurants in Edinburgh - The Witchery.

Nearby is the site of the former Tolbooth Kirk. This Gothic style building was built between 1842 and 1844 by Augustus Pugin and James Gillespie Graham to house the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Kirk's presiding body.

The Edinburgh International Festival acquired the building in 1995 and it underwent a huge transformation before opening to the public in July, 1999 as the Hub.

But Tom remembers it as a place that "well to do" people would hand in clothes and shoes for the "not so well off".

He adds: "The caretaker knew my dad, so needless to say he became the best dressed vendor in Edinburgh."

But there were other characters on Castlehill.

"I remember one man who pretended to be a guide," says Tom. "He wore a big badge about the size of a saucer.

"Then there was an old gentleman who drove a handsome black cab. He took tourists up and down the Royal Mile all day long.

"And there was a lady who sold white heather, claiming a sprig would bring good luck."

Tom grew up in Wardieburn with his six brothers and four sisters.

"We lived in a two-bedroomed flat with a living room with its own bathroom, which was quite a luxury in those days," he says. "But because of the size of our family, my parents slept in the living room and the boys and girls were divided between the two bedrooms. We all had to go top to tail."

Today, Tom lives with his wife Janet, 63, in Trinity. The couple have one son Michael, who is 36, and two grandchildren, Rebecca nine, and Jessica, five.